In a way, yes, partly because we’re rendering typically larger images now (1080p is 4x larger than 800x600), but also because the image quality standards are ve

In a way, yes, partly because we’re rendering typically larger images now (1080p is 4x larger than 800x600), but also because the image quality standards are very high, and because scenes are enormous compared to a pair of spheres and a checkerboard plane with a single light, because games don’t get to spend the entire frame budget on rays, and because we’re using a lot more stochastic sampling now using path tracing than what Turner Whitted did. We do get the 500,000x relative to Cray, and denoising effectively adds another x-factor on top of that, and that’s what it takes to get today’s games up to passable real time ray tracing. On the other hand, genuine real-time ray tracing without denoising has been possible for a long time for toy scenes outside of games, it all depends on what goal posts we’re talking about exactly, right?